What are mistakes you made starting out as a collector you are embarrassed by today?

[BigMac]

thought base/rookie cards were boring.. still not a fan of getting multiple copies of the same card especially for base cards..

[marl1220]

Originally Posted by hairysasquatch

Possible winner here.

In all fairness, in 1987 Basketball and Football cards were all but worthless. That being said it still sucks!

[Neal]

My mistakes were made as a veteran … bought into the project 2020 hype

[hermanotarjeta]

Sacre bleu!

I traded a fleer Jordan rookie, topps Dan Marino rookie, fleer Karl malone rookie, 1984 donruss mattingly and 1984 topps Elway rookie for 14 packs of upper deck French hockey - and the best card I pulled was a Canada’s captain Lindros Card.

Not even a pat falloon!

Was getting into hockey at the time, dang I was an idiot.

Lesson learned - don’t ever trade high end singles to gamble on hyped wax.

[dhendrix1303]

Shoe boxes and not caring about condition

[Josie27]

Too many mistakes to count. I am basically the stereotype for "collected as a kid....adult now yada yada"

I do not consider actually opening the wax I bought as an actual mistake. Think I can forgive myself for not being able to predict the future. However a lack of research is a mistake.

Basically my mistakes boiled down to...
1. Not admitting nor tracking how much $$ I was spending on wax.
1a. Feeling like I needed something to open every night (aka an addiction).
1b. Spending $30-$100 several times per week on crap retail just because.
2. A lack of QUALITY research and NO PLAN or GOAL. It wasnt until a member here broke down in simple terms why buying Finest and Museum Collection was basically the worst thing I could do. I still have way too much Prizm baseball in my COMC account.
3. Thinking Bowman and Flagship cards were somehow less desirable because they were not the thick cardstock like Prizm.
4. Opening products from damn near every sport.

Basically all the typical noob mistakes.



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[banosd]

I had spots in group breaks going on multiple screens a couple of times. It was like a stock trader display of stupidity

[dodgerfanjohn]

8 year old me pulled 7 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson’s. A few years later I had traded all away but two.

Not paying attention to centering.

Buying way too much Signature Rookies stuff.

Made really good wax buys about 10 years ago. But I’m still suspect on a 1985 Topps Wax Box. One of the bigger resealed boxes at the time. I have a cello box also that is for sure good(bought from BBCE) but the 1985 was box was from eBay.

[HalfNipponese]

I made to many mistakes when I started to count. My biggest mistake since getting back into the hobby was asking dealers about rare card values. That was a huge mistake as some of them were more interested in making money off me rather than helping. I should have looked into forums like this first.

My second mistake was buying retail packs from card shops. It never occurred to me that weighing packs and blasters was a thing. Retail from retail and hobby from hobby is my new mantra.

[ronzo]

I begged my parents for a label maker as a kid so I could put Beckett BVs on cards. Recently got some boxes from my parents and found tons of late 80s trash commons with .05 labels on them...

[no10pin]

I've made too many mistakes over 35 years of collecting to go back and revisit, but you can put me in the opening too much wax column for sure. Would be great to have all of that stuff sealed right now, but that's no fun.

Also, I just happened to find these pictures last week as we were going through our store room. Not embarrassing at all, just great to remember what collecting looked like for me in the 80s. I don't remember the logic behind the sort order for cards behind the ones on top.

No cards were damaged in the use of this bulletin board. Soft sleeves used to have a lot more room at the top!







Even back then, 88 Donruss got no respect...

[inceptus]

Selling a couple of large boxes of 1965-1967 singles that I inherited from my neighbor to the new LCS in the late '70s for $100 because I had never seen a $100 bill.

I pulled out and kept a selection of key cards that I thought were "important"-- Seaver rookie, '67 Brooks Robinson, um... '67 Maury Wills-- but the boxes I sold were filled with Mantles, Aarons, Mayses, etc.

Probably a year later at a Holiday Inn card show I was offered a complete 1969 Topps set for the Maury Wills. I declined that offer, and instead sold the card for $40.

Feels good to get this off my chest...

[Rage]

confess your sins...repent

[Skelly]

I wish I could chalk it up as a lesson learned, but I have been making the same mistake for 5+ years. Usually I jump into a set without actually figuring out whether I can afford to collect the set. At various times I've tried to collect the complete c55 hockey set, 1933 OPC hockey, every 2018 Topps Update SSP variation in PSA 10, etc. I usually get a dozen cards in, realize I don't have the money to buy everything (or the desire to purchase the 300 commons I need to complete a set).

I'd like to think I'm learning, but I just bought my first t206 card 2 weeks ago...

[Collinsfanatic]

In 1988 or 89 I was in kb toys and they had 86/87 fleer basketball 4/$1.00 or $10.00 a box. Of course I bought the new topps baseball instead.

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[DrewTheMan]

Well back during the Bryce Harper craze, I sold off my Mike Trout RC/Prospect lot of around 100 cards for a few hundred bucks in a lot on eBay. Just to go invest in Bryce Harper believing that he was the next messiah. Yup. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

[tconte]

Originally Posted by Neal

My mistakes were made as a veteran … bought into the project 2020 hype

LOL!!

This is probably up there for me too. The other was selling my diamond Trout
PSA 10 for 3k.

[tconte]

Originally Posted by patchgenie

investing in pitchers

I'm lucky to say I was not that stupid.

[signed79]

Western Union.

[here2havefun]

Originally Posted by EastonElite

When all of this new money in the hobby realizes that the only true investment is vintage, the vintage market is going to go crazy.

Originally Posted by dmanrico

It's funny as I've always thought the opposite will happen with vintage (outside of the select key vintage cards we all know), but what do I know (I passed on Mike Trout).

Interesting. Would love to hear more about this. Are you saying that you think it's unlikely that any of the new money moves to vintage, and thus vintage prices remain stable (don't see rapid growth)? Or are you saying that vintage prices will actually start to drop some?

[Shadowsonic2004]

Nothing is really embarrassing. Just a learning curve. Probably just spending too much on opening packs is my flaw as a kid. If I could go back to my card collecting kid time I'd tell me to just buy singles and save money for more candy/video games. Maybe also keep the cards in better condition. I sleeved nothing and just put them in a plastic box.

[Browns1981]

I don't know why I bought so much 92 Score, Fleer and Donruss, but I bet I have about half of the world's supply.

[JeffG1954]

Putting duplicate cards in the spokes of my bike in the 1960s.

[Danderlion]

Originally Posted by chiefsncards275

For me it was thinking jersey cards were the coolest thing ever. I would buy any jersey or patch card that looked nice not knowing most were not actually game used. If only young me would’ve put those into lower #’ed parallels or autos.


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Same here. Got back in 2011 and pulled a Halladay jersey card. Was super pumped lol. Now I sell all jersey/relic cards. None for the PC.

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

opening any wax. should have saved it all

So much this. I used to bust wax like a mad man. Heck, I opened of bunch of 2011 BDPP just a few years back... bad decision.

Originally Posted by patchgenie

investing in pitchers

opening wax that is a good one too. should have kept it sealed.

For me, this one isn't true. I've done great with pitchers.

[rcmb3220]

Buying 87 Topps Baseball packs at Woolworth instead of the discounted 86 Fleer basketball packs. Basketball cards? Never heard of such a thing.